서울
:
한국조세연구원

Date

2004-12

Pages

238

Subject Country

South Korea(Asia and Pacific)

Language

Korean

File Type

Link

Subject

Economy < Economic Administration

Holding

한국조세연구원

License

Abstract

Income inequality in Korea, which declined throughout the 1980s and early 1990s and remained quite stable during the mid 1990s, has sharply risen since the economic crisis of 1997 and 1998. The main factors driving this sharp increase were restructuring, a steep rise in the unemployment rate, increasing numbers of part-time workers, aging of the population, etc.In late 1980s, the share of household heads with high school or better education increased, offsetting a decline in household heads with middle school or lower educational backgrounds. These changes accounted for the drastic decrease in the Gini coefficient in this period. In early 1990s, the distribution of education levels of household heads became quite skewed toward higher education levels, which was reflected in the gradually decline of the Gini coefficient over the same period. However, in 1998, the period of the economic crisis in Korea, the Gini rose sharply, as did income disparities among households of different education backgrounds. Since the economic crisis, the internal income inequality, that is, within-education group inequalities, have risen, although between-education group inequalities have not changed much, and Gini has remained high. In the past, especially during the 1980s, improved education levels accounted for a large part of the decline in relative income disparities in Korea. However, it is doubtful that policies encouraging higher education will be able to contribute much more to reducing income gaps, mainly because the distribution of education levels is reaching a saturation point in the sense that it cannot shift as quickly as it did in the past. (The rest omitted)